question

My view on this is no we shouldn't be doing other people's homework but then again so what if we do? We already know the answer so we can either help them like I tried to do in this question or just answer it, gain a bit of practise and the person asking the question gains nothing but does it matter?

Not sure why the sudden influx!

Have prompted one particular 'offender' to try and participate a little more, but we'll have to see. Some of the questions are gaining votes to be closed, and if they get enough votes, then the community has spoken.
[I don't feel as though I should vote on these, as being a mod, my vote is final]

I agree with you, if the questions are well phrased, formatted and the user genuinely participates, then we should allow them to continue.

BTW although there is uptick in the number of homework's this week there isnt uptick in the number of users posting homework's. Have you noticed all homework questions are from one user?

My view is its okay to answer homework questions if u want to but do it if you feel they made effort before posting the question or at least put effort on composing the question otherwise wait 72hrs before answering them. That way people who suddenly come across to the page in the future will get the question with answer and use it as a reference. But yet again I formatted and tried to answer one homework today :-)

I believe the increase may be due to a combination of increased site visibility and students' homework increasing as the end of the school semester/year approaches.

I strongly agree with the majority of opinions (and worded so well by Grant) that we should help but not do all of the work. My main concern is that some of this "homework" could in fact be take-home exams. I agree with the intent of Ian's comment (that the poster who doesn't even try gains no knowledge), but giving away answers to an exam can certainly help their grade. And then perhaps one of us pays for it a year later when that person becomes your new junior assistant that was hired due to their good college grades. :)

I haven't answered any homework questions yet (that I can recall), but that doesn't mean I never will. I would prefer to only answer ones that include an attempted solution.

Quite a few answers here. I think there is an uptick as well. I think there might be some midterms coming up and somebody got quite a bit behind. Another option is that these are test prep questions for that midterm and the individuals have no clue how to work them out.

I think they would be better served to just post the actual question, then their data and schema with the attempt that they made at solving it.

Like Grant, I am little opposed to helping with the homework if I know it is homework (don't lie to me about it). The second part is do your part. My kids get away with nothing of the sort.

I'm happy to help somebody who is trying and has just got stuck. Whether it's homework or work is irrelevant. I also don't think any question is too basic to be worth answering. Every clear question with a good answer enhances the worth of this site.

But (!) if somebody like Michael just keeps posting 'do it for me' questions and takes no notice of anyone's advice, I'm in favour of moderating their questions out. They aren't the sort of questions anyone else can learn anything from.

The site is a victim of its success. Many of the individuals who answer questions here do so professionally and correctly, often with references. It has become an excellent resource in a very short time. As irksome as these can be when they are of the "please do it for me variety" it is also a badge of honour.

So in a roundabout way - congratulations to all who answer questions and help build the site!

(Answering homework is up to you)

(There are down vote capabilities for a reason)

Personally, I don't mind helping people with their homework, as long as it can be done in a 'give a man a fishing rod' kind of way. The recent examples have been totally unformatted which, while helping me out towards my 'Strunk & White' badge, still irks me, as I find the lack of effort put in disrespectful to the point of insulting.

Especially poor are the ones where the question is in the title, and the body is literally just an unformatted data dump of some rubbish. Again, like Kev, if I vote to close these then it is an instant close, irrespective of the number of previous close votes. If I see any that have 3 or more close votes on them, I will close them quite happily.

Edit -> I just +1'd pretty much every answer, they all seem to speak sense.